


Entire

by lovelyophelia



Category: Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: 00Q - Freeform, Asexual Bond, Asexuality, Biromantic Bond, Fluff, M/M, Romantic attraction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-17
Updated: 2012-11-17
Packaged: 2017-11-18 21:57:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/565715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelyophelia/pseuds/lovelyophelia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'It’s a job to you, all of this, isn’t it? You’ve become bloody good at it, over the years – taking control, satisfying, teasing. But it’s all meaningless. You’re just going through the motions.'<br/> </p><p>Written from a prompt by the lovely <a href="http://catsteaandtentacles.tumblr.com/">catsteaandtentacles</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Entire

 

I want to know how many scars you have  
and memorize the shape of your tongue.  
I want to climb the curve of your lower back  
and count your vertebrae,  
your ribs,  
your fingers,  
your goose bumps.  
I want to chart the topography of your anatomy  
and be fluent in your body language.  
I want you, entire.

-       Anon

 

The first time he saw him, Bond didn’t think much of him. Skinny, arrogant little fellow, all knock-knees and wide eyes, hunched over a laptop in a London cafe. Slender fingers wrapped around a warming mug, wool on flesh on china. Multi-layered.

He would think about those layers, again, when he was pulling them off in the boy’s Clapham flat. He would count the beats in between breaths as the boy sighed and moaned beneath him. He would count trains, too, as they went rattling overhead. One. Two. Three. Q came again and again beneath Bond’s hands, beneath Bond's touch.

And, when it was over, Q would nestle beside him and Bond would lie and stroke the nape of his neck, very slowly, with one hand – and the boy would sleep. Bond never slept. He preferred to lie, stock-still and stony-eyed, staring into the half-light, while Q fidgeted and murmured in his sleep. He wouldn’t leave, of course; that would be rude. Rude, and too reminiscent of all those other times when _work_ was _play_.

Q knew about those times. He was always listening in, watching – eyes, silent, in the dark. There were no sins he didn’t see; nothing and nowhere Bond could hide. And Bond hated it, hated knowing how much he needed it.

It was different with Q.

He’d thought it flattering when the shock-haired boy followed him to the art gallery. Faintly amusing, faintly maddening, it was a trace of disconnected rail carriages, barrelling sightlessly down wrong tracks _._ Before Vesper. Before 007. Before the SIS. Before all the killing and the fucking and the endless bottles of gin. Back to shock-haired schoolboys traipsing around London with empty pockets and hungry hearts.

It had been flattering when the boy was an admirer. Irritating when the boy approached him. Positively maddening when the boy revealed himself as Bond's new Quartermaster.  

Their affair had been an experiment, an inconvenience and then, finally, a desperate, burning need. Bond was still hoping it wouldn’t become a mistake. It frightened him, now, how much he’d come to rely on this sharp, skinny young man. So when Q crashed into him in a tangle of lips and teeth and uncharacteristic abandon, Bond hadn’t been able to say no. They had plunged, backwards, into a heap of kissing and touching and slick wet sounds and...

_The usual rubbish._

Q had been desperate to please, needy and insecure and vulnerable. He moaned, and writhed, all sleek muscles under smooth flesh; and when he came, his back arched and his eyes opened wide, he gasped Bond’s name.

Wide awake in the little grey Clapham flat, Bond slipped out from underneath the covers. Sheet clutched around his waist, he staggered to the kitchen counter and found the bottle his always-thoughtful Quartermaster had left out for him. Not much, perhaps, but a sure sign his Quartermaster cared. Bond smiled ruefully. Other lovers have flats together, apartments, whole closets in which to store their stuff (and stuff their past). All Bond and Q had was some second-rate alcohol and first-rate painkillers.

‘How’s the hip?’

Bond started. Body and brain already flaring into action, he turned to face his opponent - 

And found Q.

A naked Q.

A naked, sleep-tousled and _utterly unperturbed_ Q.

Yawning, Q walked over to the counter and poured himself some water. Bond relaxed, somewhat embarrassed.

‘Couldn’t sleep,' he said.

‘Still having those nightmares?’ Q asked, running a finger around a glass.

‘I’m leaving in the morning,’ Bond blurted out. He wasn’t sure what made him say it, but he felt utterly ridiculous once he had. More than ridiculous – cruel.

Q slumped, all bare back and long limbs, against the table. ‘So soon?’

‘Didn’t you know?’

‘No.’

Silence. Bond never apologised - unless he didn’t mean it.

Eventually, Q put down his glass. Slowly, at first, then quickly, he covered the distance between them. Beginning with the hollow under Bond’s right eye, he covered Bond’s face with kisses, feather-light. He smoothed his palm against Bond’s forehead, cupped his chin.

But when Bond turned his face away, Q stopped. Sighed. Opened his mouth. Closed it again. He was good with words, this clever Oxford boy, but he couldn't make them work this time. Stiffly, he withdrew.

And Bond saw it happening, saw the thousand myriad recriminations and regrets and confusions close in over him again, his bright boy, the one he wanted to keep safe. So he grasped Q’s hand – smooth, supple joints fragile in his palm – and placed it on his chest.

‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘Headache. Go on.’

‘007,’ said Q, ‘give yourself a day off.’

His words were quiet, precise, and utterly devastating. Frozen, Bond stared at him.

With a curious little smile, Q leaned back against the counter. Bond noticed that smile, just as he noticed everything about Q. It was the self-satisfied smile of someone who had just solved a challenging, but most satisfying, puzzle.

‘You don’t have to keep doing things you don’t want to,’ said Q. ‘In fact, I’d prefer if you didn’t. That's if I get a say in it, which I most sincerely hope I do.’

Bond’s brain refused to work. He could only stare at him.

‘How...’

Q snorted. ‘I may be Q branch, but that doesn’t mean I can’t see what’s right under my nose. Your growing attachment to me, your reluctance to express it at all until I tricked it out of you – all genuine, true and tested. Tested, how? Oh, trust me, you don’t want to know. But test you I did, and you passed. Congratulations. Or rather, to me. I thought you didn’t like me. But you _do,_ don’t you, Bond? You do like me. You like me a lot. Too much perhaps. That time in Somalia – I thought you were going to rip him limb from limb. So. No. That wasn’t it.’

Q had started pacing, walking from one side of the tiny flat to the other. He touched things as he talked, a curious habit – the engineer's necessity, perhaps, of grounding the abstract in the physical.

‘Then I started listening to your call-ins,’ he said. Q stopped, his back to Bond, head a little to the side and down. This had always been a difficult topic for him. ‘The women.’

‘My work – ‘ Bond managed to force out.

There was a calculating glint in the sharp young man’s eyes.

‘I don’t care. What you do when you're working is entirely irrelevant to me. _However_ \- I began to notice a pattern,' Q paused, took a deep breath, 'seduction. Intimidation. Tactics you use when you want to get close to someone,' he paused again, 'what I’m trying to say is...I’m not like them.’

Bond stared at him, nonplussed. ‘Well, of course you aren’t. You’re Q. You're special.’

Q flushed. ‘Well – yes, I can’t argue with the validity of your logic, but - I don’t think you quite understand.’

‘English, please, Q.’

‘What I’m trying to say is...there’s no need. You don’t have to pretend around me. You don’t have to keep doing this for me.’

Bond stared at him. ‘What – ‘

‘When we fuck, your face is set and rigid. The only pleasure you get out of it is making me come. You aren’t enjoying this. You had me ringing round old boyfriends, asking if I was crap in bed. _Thanks_ for that, by the way. Then I just thought you must be straight, but then I looked up your records. Not straight, then. Just...unselfish.’

Bond’s mouth twisted. ‘What are you implying?’

‘I don’t want you to be unselfish anymore.’

‘Damn it, Q – ‘

‘I love you.’

Bond stared at him in shock. The younger man’s face was set but not unhappy – chin up, eyes bright.

‘What...’ Bond began. Q ignored him.

‘It’s a job to you, all of this, isn’t it? You don’t actually enjoy sex. You use it as a weapon, as a tool, as a bargaining chip. What you _really_ enjoy is this, the intimacy, the proximity...that’s what you need, what you crave. So you put up with the sexual side because you think that’s what people do. You’ve become bloody good at it, over the years – taking control, satisfying, teasing. But it’s all meaningless. You’re just going through the motions.’

Bond felt as if the wind had been knocked out of him. Slowly, he pulled a chair out from behind him and sat down.

‘How...’ he managed at last.

‘Intelligence, Bond. It’s not just the men with guns who are employed in acquiring it.’

Bond’s mouth tightened. ‘Am I that obvious?’

Q snorted. ‘Hardly. You’re about as obvious as I am ordinary.’ Impulsively, he stepped forward and clasped his hands around Bond’s shoulders. ‘Which is why we’re perfect for each other.’

Bond swallowed, shook his head. He was suddenly terribly, terribly afraid. ‘No. You said it yourself – I’m...I’m not...’ he couldn’t finish the sentence. ‘And you...well, you are.’

Q smiled, a little tug of the left lip. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I am.’

‘Well. The situation seems hopeless.’ Bond stood up, unclasping Q’s hands. ‘I’ll be gone in the morning. Perhaps I should pack my things. I’ve – ‘

‘Oh, you absolute – _idiot!_ ’

Bond froze, confused. Q threw his arms back around him, clasping him tight. For the first time, he sounded angry. ‘You’re not going anywhere. I told you, I love you.’

‘But...your _requirements_...are different to mine.’

‘Oh, sod that,’ snapped Q. Then he paused, sighed, and blinked owlishly in the dark. ‘I’m perfectly capable of satisfying my needs on my own.’

Bond stared at him. ‘But...’

Q reached up to kiss him, a quick snatch of lips against a half-open, protesting mouth. ‘No buts.’ He drew back. ‘You don’t ever have to pretend with me, James. Never again. For one thing – don’t flatter yourself that it would work. For another – I want you, entire.’

Bond threaded his arms around Q’s skinny back. Despite himself, he was amused. ‘Oh, so now you’re quoting poetry at me?’

Q’s eyebrows shot up. ‘There’s some culture in the beast after all! Never thought you’d catch me there. Well done.’ Q rested his head in the warm crook of Bond’s neck. ‘Do you understand the meaning of the poem? It’s about loving someone so much, that you love everything about them. Because half a love is a sorry, pathetic, excuse. It’s nothing. It’s weak and sick and it won’t last.’ Q lifted his head and stared directly into Bond’s eyes. ‘That’s not what I feel for you.’

Bond swallowed. Suddenly, all the shattered places and dark spaces of the last few years, all the half-formulated half-lies he had been carrying around with him, like shrapnel, seemed to fade and fall into nothing.

‘I...I understand,’ he said.

From then on there were no more nights when Bond lay awake trying to count the beats in between breaths and the sighs between trains. There were other things to count – kisses, and cuddles, and warm days spent reading while Q typed away, curled up at his feet. No sound but the gentle ticking of a clock and the trust that lay thick and sweet between them. A complete and warm acceptence.

They had each other, entire.

 


End file.
